Dear Editor,
Sean McGibbon’s letter from Kilkenny offers an insightful reflection on Peter Lynch’s fascinating article – “What is truly infinite may just be the abyss of our ignorance” discussed in ‘That’s Maths’ on June 20th. McGibbon highlights Lynch’s remark that quantum theory seems to propose a restriction to the minuteness we can achieve.
In the field of theoretical physics, there’s no universal consensus on how minuscule subatomic components, such as electrons, can actually be. Utilising various mathematical tactics in modern theoretical physics computations is necessary to bypass the concept of infiniteness.
Famed for developing such mathematical methods, Richard Feynman, often described these methodologies as akin to ‘hiding infinities under the carpet’.
This provides partial insight into the development of string theory, an effort to eliminate the infinite elements that surface in our current top model of particle physics. Despite its mathematical sophistication, unfortunately, string theory lacks substantial empirical evidence to corroborate it.
Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]